Breeding Bird Survey Misadventure: A Failure to Scout

SCOUTING:   Much time can be lost due to closed roads, washed out bridges, and wrong turns.  The importance of familiarization with the 50 stops and the proper turns before the day of the run cannot be overstressed.

This is the kind of surprise that might await you if you neglect to scout your BBS route before going out to run it.

Matt Hunter and I found this downed Douglas Fir in our path along Tidbits Creek Rd. in Linn County, Oregon in June 2006. (Photo taken by Matt Hunter using a cell phone)

The preceding statement appears near the top of the instruction sheets one receives with their Breeding Bird Survey route packets. In mid-June 2006 Matt Hunter and I neglected to heed this advice before setting out to run the “Blue River” route in Oregon’s central Cascades. Matt had been running this route for more than a decade when he asked me to take it over about six months earlier. I had expressed an interest in becoming actively involved in the BBS effort and Matt was similarly interested in divesting himself from this annual responsibility. Thankfully, I convinced him to accompany me on the first run knowing that I would probably need his assistance in locating the stops and navigating my way to the starting point, which was about 20 miles from the nearest paved road.

We met in a grocery store parking lot in Springfield, Oregon at about 2:30 a.m.  I know that most of you are thinking, “What sort of birds are they going to find at this horrific hour?” From Springfield it is about a 45-minute drive east on U.S. Hwy 126 to the town of Blue River. From there it's another hour of driving up a winding, single-lane, gravel Forest Service road to the starting point. The protocol for these routes calls for starting 30 minutes before official sunrise, which on this day was about 5:15.  Matt had suggested that we plan an extra half-hour into the schedule to account for “sawing” and “rock-moving.” A small hand saw was among the items Matt pulled out as we moved his gear into my car. “What are we going to need that for?” I queried. Matt explained that the road up to the starting point gets virtually no travel, especially this early in the year when the winter snow has just melted off. “We might come across some downed trees, or limbs across the road. We’ll probably have to move lots of rocks too.”

Forty-five minutes later, we left the highway and drove another five miles to the base of
“Tidbits Creek Rd.” (U.S. Forest Service Rd. 1509).  The next five or six miles were pretty tame as we gradually made our way up into the Willamette National Forest. We gained elevation steadily, climbing through the darkness to above 3000’ in the first few miles. At about the seven-mile marker, we came to a hairpin curve. We found it a bit odd that in the middle of the curve there was bright orange rubber pylon and an orange line spray-painted on the road. We stayed as far left of the pylon as possible without sliding off into the ditch on the uphill side. “Wonder what that was about” we pondered audibly.  

At about 4000' we started finding shaded curves and banks that still had remnant patches of snow. As Matt had predicted, we found several places along the way where the melting snow had dislodged rocks that now lay in our path. We drove around many, over the top of the small ones, and Matt jumped out several times to move the rest. We pressed on. About ten miles in we noticed something massive and dark in the headlights that appeared to be blocking the road. As we drew nearer it was clearly the main trunk of a Douglas Fir, about five feet in diameter, that had come to rest one end on the roadway and the other end about 12 feet higher on top of the road-cut. We weren’t going to saw our way through this one. We piled out, surveyed the situation, and determined that we could probably drive under it, which we did. After a few dozen more stops to move rocks, and gingerly squeezing around another downed tree, we finally made it to the starting point at the top of the ridgeline. The extra stops had erased most of our half-hour buffer. It was now 4:36 a.m., just a few minutes from our start time. 

Since I was taking over as the official “observer,” it would be Matt’s job to keep time at each stop and record data as I called out what I was seeing and hearing. He eyed his watch in the glow of a flashlight waiting for it to hit 4:45. “Start” Though it was still dark, we were already hearing a pre-dawn chorus of Common Nighthawks, Hermit Warblers, Golden-crowned Kinglets, and Swainson’s Thrushes. The sun finally peeked over the horizon at about stop 5 or 6 and we quickly added Hammond’s Flycatchers, Olive-sided Flycatchers, Mountain Quail, and Chestnut-backed Chickadees to the list of species we were hearing. Hermit Warblers and Swainson’s Thrushes were a constant, with each species averaging 4-8 birds per stop.

As we continued making our way downslope, we enjoyed a cloudless and, aside from the cacophony of bird sounds, quiet morning far from human activity. Driving was now easier since we’d already moved all the rocks. We once again inched around the downed fir tree and after a couple more stops we were back at the “drive under” tree. We had no camera, but Matt pulled out his cell phone and captured a couple images of the tree and then me driving under it. We were happy to be able to record the moment, knowing that it would provide a lot of laughs for our friends and family, who often question our sanity anyway. 

One of the advantages of not owning an expensive gas-guzzling SUV, you can drive under the occasional fallen tree, but you have to stop more often to move rocks because the ground clearance leaves a bit to be desired. (Photo taken by Matt Hunter using a cell phone)

Our moods were decidedly more sober a few minutes later as we returned to the hairpin curve with the pylon. The bank underneath the road was completely eroded away leaving just a few inches of compacted roadbed hanging out about ten feet over NOTHING! Suddenly it was crystal clear why the road had been painted. Had we driven over what was left of the outer half of the road it would have certainly given way. Our next stop would have been about 500’ down a steep embankment. We carefully renegotiated the curve staying even farther towards the bank than before. I think we both exhaled audibly once we were comfortably out of the danger zone.

Our focus returned to birds as we were once again on the well-maintained lower section of Tidbits Creek Rd. We soon enjoyed the bird highlight of the day. As we slowed to a stop, Matt offered a teaser. “We may hear a real fun bird here.” He refused to let the cat out of the bag until we’d completed our point count. Soon after saying “Stop” Matt offered up his best Northern Spotted Owl imitation. Almost immediately we heard a deep “hoo hoo-hoo hoooo” answer back from a steep drainage across the narrow valley. Matt laughed as I grinned broadly. This was an unexpected treat. He had lucked out with this pair of birds several years earlier when one voluntarily started calling during his point count at this station. Unfortunately, vocal chumming is not allowed during BBS routes, so one can only count those birds that happen to sing or call during the three-minute count.

The rest of the morning was comparatively uneventful aside from narrowly missing a small sinkhole and having to drive through a spot where water was flowing over a rather saturated section of roadway.

I have since taken on two additional BBS routes and as you might expect, I scout each of them thoroughly before the run date. I ran the Blue River route again in 2007 and since snow was pretty light that winter, there were no downed trees and far fewer rocks in the road than there were in 2006. However, the winter of 2007-08 saw some of the heaviest snow accumulations in decades in the Oregon Cascades. During my 2008 scouting run I encountered several spots were the road was beginning to fail. The hairpin curve that was badly eroded in 2006 was now totally impassable. With no current logging activities in this area and none planned anytime soon, this road is not a priority and there is no indication that the Forest Service plans anything beyond patchwork repairs. Hence, I recommended that the Blue River route be abandoned for safety reasons. The folks at the U.S.G.S. have already created an alternate route. I look forward to scouting and running the new route this coming June.

This is the largest of a series of sinkholes that I found along the lower section of Tidbits Creek Rd. on 17 June 2008. This hole was about nine inches wide, fifteen inches long and more than two feet deep. Wouldn't want to drop a tire into this one. (Photo taken by David Irons using a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ8)

These events have in no way dampened my enthusiasm for running BBS routes. Besides, if we had just scouted in this case, there would have been no surprises. Breeding bird surveys contribute to a greater understanding of what is happening within the populations of sampled species and they also provide a window into the overall health of your local ecosystems. Running BBS routes is also a wonderful way to build your ear-birding skills. I would highly encourage you to go online and see if there are open routes in your area. Most routes are designed to be off the beaten track and there is an understandable joy in spending a morning listening to the birds, the wind, and the occasional babbling brook.

This vista is representative of what you might enjoy when running many of the North American Breeding Bird Survey routes. This image was captured along Lobster Valley Rd., Benton County in Oregon's Coast Range on 25 June 2008. (Photo taken by David Irons using a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ8)

For more information about the North American Breeding Bird Survey visit:

http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/BBS